


When We Were Young

by static_abyss



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Child Neglect, Drugs, F/M, Gen, High School, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-20
Updated: 2016-12-20
Packaged: 2018-09-09 23:28:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8917339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/static_abyss/pseuds/static_abyss
Summary: No one told Éponine she had to meet a nice boy. So she never looked for one, and by the time Montparnasse came into her life, at fourteen, Éponine wasn't sure she even wanted a nice boy.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BlackandBlueMagpie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackandBlueMagpie/gifts).



> For BlackandBlueMagpie. Have very happy holidays!
> 
> Title from the Adele song of the same name.

No one told Éponine she had to meet a nice boy. So she never looked for one, and by the time Montparnasse came into her life, at fourteen, Éponine wasn't sure she even wanted a nice boy.

***

She met Montparnasse at the back of their six-floored public school, rolling on the floor with a blond football jock. There were other football kids there, too, yelling about how they couldn't even trust gays to be guys anymore. Montparnasse spat in the direction of the footballers, his grin bloody but wild, like he had nothing to lose.

Éponine just wanted a smoke, but she recognized fear in Montparnasse’s expression, the same way she learned to see it in hers. 

“Hey, dickbags,” she said, lighting up her cigarette. “I brought my daddy’s gun today.”

She wasn't stupid enough to have anything on her, but she'd pulled a switchblade on the big jock standing watch, once, when they were twelve and he'd threatened to tell the school psychologist that Éponine was bringing Gavroche to school. Gavroche had been two then, and Éponine had been keeping him in the unlocked supply closet on the third floor hallway, by the auditorium for a bit, just while their mother sorted out a housing problem, or set things on fire, both of which amounted to the same where her parents were concerned.

Éponine never got a call to the psychologist’s office, and Gavroche had been safely with their mom the next day. But the rumors spread and Éponine didn't make any new friends that year or the years after. She couldn't afford to care, told herself that she didn't care, because Gavroche was always hungry and Azelma was starting to catch the eyes of their father's friends. But she'd gotten into trouble a lot that year, always one or two kids reporting her for carrying a knife. Éponine never got caught and the school was always willing to believe whatever stupid lie Éponine told them just for a little bit of excitement in their boring middle class lives. 

Still, trouble always seemed to follow Éponine wherever she went and even the jocks were smart enough to be wary of her. On top that, Éponine had found that people were rarely brave when more than one person stood up to them. 

“Leave,” Éponine said now, around her cigarette, rolling it a bit while she pretended to dig into her pocket. 

The group of jocks glanced at Montparnasse and the blond kid still trying to pry Montparnasse off. 

“Let’s just go,” the biggest jock said. “It was getting boring anyway.”

Éponine scoffed and watched them walk away. She waited while Montparnasse finally stood up, shook out his shoulders and spat out more blood. He and Éponine both watched as the blond kid, who Éponine was willing to bet was named Jean, ran away.

“So?” Éponine asked, blowing out her cigarette smoke. 

Montparnasse turned around, the neck of his oversized purple t-shirt stretched out. He undid his messed up ponytail and seemed to notice Éponine.

“Shit,” he said, looking her over. “You look fucked.”

Éponine gave him a once over and grinned. “So do you,” She said.

He rolled his eyes. “You should have seen the other guy,” he said.

“What happened?” she asked, curious despite knowing it would get her nowhere good.

Montparnasse looked her over carefully, and Éponine raised an eyebrow, her pride winning out over any embarrassment she might have felt at what she was wearing. At the moment, Montparnasse wasn’t much better off, and besides, Éponine had long ago stopped caring what she looked like. 

“All right,” Montparnasse said, patting himself down into something closer to presentable. “I was sucking his dick and his friends caught us, and well, you know how that shit goes.”

“You into dicks?” Éponine asked, amused despite herself as she watched Montparnasse try to see himself in his phone screen.

“Not exclusively. Why?” he said, turning dark eyes on Éponine. “You interested?”

Éponine laughed. “Who knows?” she said. “I might be.”

***

When they were fourteen and a half, Montparnasse taught Éponine how to paint her nails, how to stick cotton in between her toes so she wouldn't get nail varnish on her skin. He gave her half of his makeup brushes and all of his lipstick when he turned fifteen and stopped using the name his parents gave him. He moved out of his house that year, too.

When they were fifteen and a half, Montparnasse showed up at school wearing brand new jeans and fitted shirts. He cut his hair and took to styling it with gel. He started hormone therapy that year, and girls took to stopping in the hallways to look at him with admiration instead of disgust. No one got too close though, because Montparnasse had changed over the summer, had changed sometime between leaving his parents’s house and showing up at Éponine’s door on the first day of their sophomore year. 

He walked like he knew things the rest of them didn’t, as though he were no longer afraid of what anyone might say, because he had said worse, done worse. Éponine didn’t ask, not even when Montparnasse handed her a better switchblade and said, “I know you know how to use it. Just wanted you to have a better one.”

And because Montparnasse was the only person who Éponine cared about, outside of Azelma and Gavroche, she kept it. 

Besides, Éponine knew a pretty boy like Montparnasse had to learn to be tough. He had to learn how to fight and rage, how to survive in a world that didn't understand him on good days and wanted him dead on bad ones. Éponine would never try to deny him what little benefit he could drag from his shitty world.

***

When Éponine got kicked out of the house with her brother and sister for the first time, Montparnasse told his roommate that Éponine would be staying. Then, he folded the red futon in the living room down into a bed, and gave Éponine, Gavroche, and Azelma his bedroom.

It was the first time Éponine had been in Montparnasse’s apartment since he'd moved out of his parents’ house. Montparnasse’s room had the same black curtains, the dark blue sheets, and the mirrored dresser with the little tubes of foundation and bronzer powders lined in front. The only difference was the mahogany chest at the foot of the bed with the heavy brass lock, and the closet full of designer clothing.

Éponine was furious at her parents and scared. She had nowhere to go, no money, no legal right to Azelma or Gavroche. She didn't even have a high school diploma to show for all the shit days she spent in school. If her mother and father didn’t get it together, she was done.

She sat at the foot of Montparnasse’s bed while Azelma and Gavroche fell asleep, trying not to think but knowing she would have to. She tried not to think about how much weed there had been sitting in the living room table, or how she definitely had felt the gun under Montparnasse’s sweater when he hugged her. He was seventeen, beautiful in his sharp, vicious way, and if anyone could help her, it would be him. 

He was waiting for her on the futon in the living room, when Éponine finally stepped out. He’d taken off his sweater and was sitting in just jeans and white t-shirt, his hair long again but tied back carefully from his face. He looked like he was up to something, his boyish mischievousness morphed into something harder, sly. 

He’d grown up right in front of Éponine’s eyes, hardening the way she knew he would have to. Éponine loved Montparnasse, but she didn't have to worry about him. She didn’t have to worry that he wouldn’t know how to protect himself. She didn’t even have to worry that they would make a mistake and end up pregnant. 

“Let me help you,” he said.

Éponine thought of Gavroche, curled up next to Azelma, his wide blue eyes and blond hair so much like their father. She thought of Gavroche stumbling onto something he shouldn’t, or Azelma catching the wrong person’s attention. She thought of Montparnasse offering money and safety, and a kind of love that Éponine wasn’t sure she wanted. She thought of Gavroche back at home with their parents, always hungry, growing harder and colder, of him and Azelma in the streets.

“Let me help you,” Montparnasse said, again.

Éponine loved him.

But she didn’t trust him. 

Montparnasse cared about her, about how Azelma and Gavroche were doing, but he cared about himself more. He had to, because no one else had ever put him first. Not even Éponine, because she had Azelma and Gavroche.

“It can’t be forever,” Éponine said now. 

“I know,” Montparnasse said, holding out his hand. “I get it. But for what it’s worth, I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”

“I know,” Éponine said, taking his hand, both of them knowing the other was lying.


End file.
